Project "Starlab" space station

[K_Jameson]

With the "Gaia" space station in indefinite hold, we have decided to undertake a faster approach to the problem of ensuring a permanent orbital outpost of Forum Orbiter Italia: the "Starlab" orbital workshop.

Starlab represents a radical departure from the modular, ISS-like approach that we have pursued on Gaia: instead of several small modules launched with medium rockets, we will launch the entire station in one shot, with a single Quasar 452 superheavy rocket, the largest and most capable of the FOI's inventory.

This old-style strategy was pursued with the Skylab station, that was in active service forty years ago. The two spacecrafts are linked by another aspect: like Skylab, the main body of the Starlab station is derived from a rocket stage, in this case the third stage of the Quasar 452 SHLV. The engines and the related thrust structures, fuel lines etc. was removed; the LOX and LH2 tanks was converted in living and work spaces, and some other custom compartments was added: a "shelter" module, heavily protected from radiations, conceived as sleep area, two "cupola" modules for external observaton, a node module, three docking ports and an airlock. All together, these modules offers a pressurized volume of about 725 cubic metres, or about 87% of the entire ISS volume, with an 8 meters-large main body, compared to the mere 4 meters offered by the ISS.

A non pressurized service module, equipped with a fuel reserve and engines for auto-reboost capability, and a science module (also non pressurized) with a 1.3 meters infrared telescope for Earth and planetary surveillance, completes the station layout.
The total weight of the station is in range of 160-170 tons; the station itself, with his monolithic layout, the large volume and the shelter compartment that provides a crew protection for prolonged times , can be considered as a "prototype" hab module for an Earth-Mars journey.

The station will be, for now, a Spacecraft 3 project, but will take full advantage from the utilize with the dll-built Antares or Eridanus spacecrafts, of which can be considered an "expansion". The station will have explorable ambients, carefully developed by the FOI member Vittorio (Robitaille_fan on Orbiter Forum), taking inspiration from the Skylab layout.

The launch of a single-shot big space station represents the realization of one of the two mission for which the Quasar super rocket was conceived; the other goal of that rocket is the launch of a big habitable lunar lander, that is the "Arcturus", still in slow development.
Starlab 1 with its multiple docking ports can anyway support further expansions: two Starlab stations linked together can support a crew of 10-12 with a pressurized volume 75% greater than the ISS, at the cost of only two launches instead of dozens.

Some images:

Texturized external (solar panels and radiators folded)

Some views of the inernals

Cutaway

General layout of the station, solar panels and radiators opened and Antares capsule attached

Hypotesis of two starlab linked together (the resulting pressurized volume would be 75% greater than ISS)

Comparison with Skylab in the same scale

Before and after: the Quasar third stage and the Starlab station

---------- Post added 12-08-14 at 09:09 AM ---------- Previous post was 12-07-14 at 11:58 AM ----------

No feedbacks? :hmm:

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Loving it. Sad to hear that Gaia is in limbo, I loved what you guys had done so far (older Orbiter '06 version) but I like this idea too. Skylab on steroids!

You need a beta tester?

 

[K_Jameson]

A single-shot workshop is the only way to propose a FOI space station in these times of relative stagnation of our forum. Gaia was a wonderful project but maybe too complex for our community, at the present.

Anyway, the creative orbinaut will assemble Starlab with other modules already available on OH, as the first Gaia module or the inflatable Malerba deep space outpost... or will utilize the Starlab as hab for an interplanetary travel... :thumbup:

Many thanks for your offer... at the right time i will contact you for some testing! :tiphat:

 

[IronRain]

Cool idea! Like Phantom said, too bad Gaia is on hold, I liked the idea.

Skylab was always one of my favorite projects and since this is derived from it, I like it.
Looking forward to this Tuesday!

 

[Dantassii]

Some suggestions

Some suggestions to make this a better station than Skylab could have been or that the ISS will ever be:

1. Be sure that it has the capability to be refueled. You'll run out of RCS fuel a lot sooner than 40 years if you don't. You may need to create a refueling vehicle depending on what fuel it uses for RCS thrusters.
   
2. Never use up all your docking ports for expansion modules. If necessary, create an expansion module with a docking port module on the opposite end.
   
3. Make the modules replaceable. If you design your station so that each module is 100% replaceable at any time, you can possibly extend the lifetime of the entire station well beyond it's current 40 year lifespan. As modules wear out, you can launch a replacement, undock the original, and dock in the replacement. This is something that the ISS cannot do.

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[K_Jameson]

Looking forward to this Tuesday!

Oh, no! Not THIS Tuesday, for sure! :lol:

---------- Post added at 11:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:47 AM ----------

Some suggestions to make this a better station than Skylab could have been or that the ISS will ever be:

1. Be sure that it has the capability to be refueled. You'll run out of RCS fuel a lot sooner than 40 years if you don't. You may need to create a refueling vehicle depending on what fuel it uses for RCS thrusters.
2. Never use up all your docking ports for expansion modules. If necessary, create an expansion module with a docking port module on the opposite end.
3. Make the modules replaceable. If you design your station so that each module is 100% replaceable at any time, you can possibly extend the lifetime of the entire station well beyond it's current 40 year lifespan. As modules wear out, you can launch a replacement, undock the original, and dock in the replacement. This is something that the ISS cannot do.

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

Thanks for your suggestions!

I try to reply:
1) Refuelling capability. I'm not fully aware of the ISS procedures, but if Zarya module can be refueled, i don't see problems for refuelling Starlab. The problems comes with cryogenic fuels, and we don't have it. Anyway, thank to the very high payload capability of our Quasar rocket, Starlab can have a big reserve of storable propellants: 20 tons or even higher, enough for years of operations, even without refuelling. And many reboosts can be performed with the attached spacecrafts, saving station's fuel.
2) Your suggestion will be taken in account!
3) Starlab comes as monolithic station, exactly as Skylab. No capability of module replacement, only room for expansions. A feature that can be take in consideration for a future version, if will ever come...

 

[gattispilot]

Nice interiors

 

[IronRain]

Oh, no! Not THIS Tuesday, for sure! :lol:

Oh no! I meant THE tuesday when it is released :lol:

 

[Schmidtrock]

Consider my hand up for beta volunteerism! Love this idea, another Skylab fan here. It was launched and in its heyday in my childhood days.

 

[Interceptor]

Yes I would also like to beta test too.

 

[Pipcard]

How come the solar arrays of Skylab and Starlab don't need to be extra-large relative to the pressurized modules (like the ISS)?

 

[K_Jameson]

I don't know exactly why. I can imagine that a single big ambient like Skylab or Starlab can require less energy to be mantained from the environment point of view, because tends to have more thermal inertia than a smaller one, like an ISS module, given its more favorable volume/surface ratio. Maybe can be less expensive to mantain once the normal environment levels are reached.
But I could have said a stupid thing!
Anyway, final Starlab will have slightly larger solar panels than the ones showed in these previews.

 

[boogabooga]

This is good. Quasar needs more things to launch. If you have a super-heavy, may as well use it!

 

[K_Jameson]

Detail of the "cupola" opening mechanism.

Closed.

Opened, with 45° rotation of the cover. The same Spacecraft3 command will open the cover of the infrared telescope.

 

[Pipcard]

Could resupply be performed by the Verrazzano spacecraft?

 

[orbitingpluto]

How come the solar arrays of Skylab and Starlab don't need to be extra-large relative to the pressurized modules (like the ISS)?

The ISS simply supports more equipment than Skylab did, and having enough solar array are to support the European and Japanese labs on the station was something I know came up as a issue at least once in the 90's. I have a pdf version of "Space Station Redesign Team: Final Report to the Advisory Committee on the Redesign of the Space Station"(~1993, here on the NTRS) on my hard drive that states in as a design requirement that 30kw has to be available for international use; I don't know how that number was arrived at, but since at the time Russian involvement was limited to Soyuz TMs as life boats, I think it's somewhat reasonable to assume the majority of the 30kw would be going to the Japanese and European labs. The ISS, according to it's facts and figures page, generates a total of 87kw, and while I don't have an actual breakdown of power allocations, it seems reasonable to assume at least half of the ISS's electricity goes to power science gear.

On the other side, according to "Skylab, a Guidebook" written prior to the launch of Skylab, both of the solar wings on the Orbital Workshop together could produce an average power of 3.8kw, and the windmill-shaped arrays on the telescope mount could produce an average of 3.7kw. It also states the a single OWS solar wing could generate 12kw under ideal conditions, and since the figure I found for the ISS doesn't say if it's averaged or not, I'm not sure how well these figures compare to each other. At any rate, compared to the ISS's abundance of racks of science equipment, Skylab is pretty sparse equipment-wise, with fewer things to drive power requirements than the ISS did.

---------- Post added at 06:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:33 AM ----------

Some cutaways for comparison:

ISS:

Skylab:

And the central object that this thread revolves around, Starlab:

From the looks of it, Starlab's interior and equipment set up is more akin to Skylab than the ISS, and generally follows the layout. Starlab does have racks of equipment around the circumference of it's upper deck, and since on Skylab that area was mostly open volume and storage, I'd expect that difference to mean a increase in Starlab's solar array area, compared to Skylab. Or maybe not, I'll leave that up to the developer(s) to decide.


Anyway, I've had a fun evening, and with a addon that isn't even out:lol:. Kudos to FOI. The only other thing I can say is that while I like the Starlab so far, it does mass enough to be out of the range of my usual super heavy-lift stable(Energia and the Jarvis family, with the exclusion of the Jarvis M). I might have to break my self-imposed rule and get a bigger rocket, but that's no misstep of yours. You've got a download on whatever Tuesday Starlab comes out on.

 

[K_Jameson]

Could resupply be performed by the Verrazzano spacecraft?

Obviously you can dock at Starlab with every spacecraft equipped with a standard docking port; Verrazzano will perfectly fit the Starlab ports and is the primary choice for the resupply (and reboost) of the station, if you want to use FOI's hardware. The aft docking port (Docking port n. 3) is directly connected with the main storage area and, normally, will be reserved for the logistic spacecrafts as Verrazzano.

More sophisticated spacecrafts as Eridanus can perform more elaborate resupply and upgrades of the station: my friend Vittorio, that has already created the internals, has developed in Sc3 a special Canadarm for the station, designed for the trasport in the Eridanus cargo bay.

---------- Post added at 08:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:42 AM ----------

The ISS simply supports more equipment than Skylab did,
[...]
At any rate, compared to the ISS's abundance of racks of science equipment, Skylab is pretty sparse equipment-wise, with fewer things to drive power requirements than the ISS did.

This was the more logical and obvious explanation, thanks!

Anyway, I've had a fun evening, and with a addon that isn't even out. Kudos to FOI. The only other thing I can say is that while I like the Starlab so far, it does mass enough to be out of the range of my usual super heavy-lift stable(Energia and the Jarvis family, with the exclusion of the Jarvis M). I might have to break my self-imposed rule and get a bigger rocket, but that's no misstep of yours. You've got a download on whatever Tuesday Starlab comes out on.

Quasar 452 is the designed launcher, but nearly one third of the station's weight comes from the "water shield" of the shelter/sleep compartment (50 cm thick, for a total weight of circa 49 tons). Leaving that weight, the station can barely reenter in the Jarvis M capability, but not in his fairing. As consequence, at least a Quasar 440 is required for the launch.
Anyway... Many thanks for your comments!

 

[Dantassii]

Quasar 452 is the designed launcher, but nearly one third of the station's weight comes from the "water shield" of the shelter/sleep compartment (50 cm thick, for a total weight of circa 49 tons). Leaving that weight, the station can barely reenter in the Jarvis M capability, but not in his fairing. As consequence, at least a Quasar 440 is required for the launch.

That's been my issue with every heavy lift launcher ever designed/built since the original Nova series was put on paper back in the 1960's. It makes no sense what so ever to build a heavy lift launcher if you don't have payloads for it to lift, and I do mean payloads. As SpaceX is discovering with their Falcon XX and Falcon XX Heavy designs, it is not economically viable to design, let alone build, a vehicle capable of 150 tons to LEO unless you can find at least 3-5 payloads PER YEAR, every year, to launch on it. That was 1 of the downsides to the Saturn V. Yes, it was an impressive vehicle, but if you are only going to launch 13 of them at about 2 per year (13 launches over 7 years), it just isn't economical to mass produce them.

Now if they had build Pad 39 the way Von Braun originally planned it, they would have had 3-5 pads and would have launched 4-5 Saturn V's per year, every year, from 1968 well into the 1990s. At that rate, the economies of mass production can be felt and the price per launch goes down considerably.

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[K_Jameson]

Good analysis!

FOI has developed Quasar (and Jarvis M) for a precise goal: a lunar scenario with lunar rendez-vous and a big, abitative lander. For that goal, and for putting in TLI separately Antares and the Arcturus lander, we needed two rockets with at least 40 and 80 tons to TLI, respectively. Sure, we can imagine a more conservative and complex scenario with medium rockets, but:
1) extensive on-orbit assembly operations tends to complicate the addon development, that can fall in the same hell where "Gaia" space station fell (not that Arcturus feels better... ;-) )
2) don't underestimate the coolness of launching big rockets ;-)

Quasar, our "big rocket", has few payloads principally because our exploration projects (moon, and even Mars) are suspended or almost, given of the current stagnation of our community. In better times, i'm sure that more payload would be found...

Anyway, two of the three stages of the Quasar 452 are shared with smaller rockets, triggering some scale economy, or trying it...

---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 AM ----------

Integration test with the Quasar upper stage and fairing. Unlike Skylab, Starlab will make use of the full three-stage launcher instead of a two-stage one as the Saturn INT-21.

The same cutaway posted above, with some indications.

 

[Cras]

I have to say, this is a very cool project. I had been toying around with the idea of a lunar space station for my VSA for a long time now, and I think this would be a fine station to throw at the moon, very impressive stuff, keep up the good work!